Taken
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: Toddler Mikey is taken home by an elderly woman. Will he ever find his way back home?
1. Chapter 1

_Cute little turtles. Keep in mind that the little guy isn't the most reliable narrator at all of three years old or so. I realize that Target doesn't carry food for either humans or cats, but just pretend. I'd change it to Wal-Mart, but I used a gag with it._

Elaine left the subway. Now where was Target? Was this even the right block? She'd lived in New York City her whole life and had shopped at the Target store since it opened, so why couldn't she find it? The stores on this street were different. They had changed ownership slowly over time. She recognized the buildings, but not the signs outside of them. Only the old Howard Pharmacy was the same.

Her daughter told her to wait until tomorrow. "You can get cat food any time. Let me get it." She's told Michelle that as long as she could walk, she could still ride the subway. Michelle was well-meaning, but she acted like she was the mother sometimes.

Elaine wasn't lost. She caught sight of the street corner sign. 52nd and Clay. So Target was a block to the right. She pushed her walker a little faster, scanning the sidewalk ahead for black ice. All she needed was a broken hip.

As she passed an alley, she heard a small scuffling and turned her head. She hated seeing stray cats in alleys. True, they were feral, but it was still depressing to think of them living in garbage cans instead of in warm houses where they belonged.

A little child's voice said, somewhere near her knees, "Excuse me, I'm lost. Can you tell me where I live?"

There was a child. Maybe a child. She wasn't sure what it was at first. It was naked and shivering, but it looked like it was wearing green makeup and a large brown backpack.

"What are you doing out here alone? And with no clothes on?"

The little creature rubbed its arms and legs together and looked like it was doing the potty dance that Michelle used to do. Now Elaine observed Michelle's own little girl doing the same dance and in exactly the same way. "I don't wear clothes. I got lost from my Sensei. My brother Raphie dared me to run outside of the tunnel when Sensei wasn't watching. He's real naughty. I couldn't remember where I came from and then I walked and walked. I'm real tired and my feets hurt. I'm supposed to hide when I get lost because people are bad, but you look like a nice lady and I think because you're nice that you'll take me home. I was getting lonely behind that thing too. And I'm cold and I'm hungry and I gotta go potty."

She blinked at the little green child a few times. "You talk a lot, don't you?"

"It makes Leo hit me lots." It held up a little green, three fingered hand. "Please take me home. I'm so cold."

She pulled off her top coat. Luckily she had worn a thick sweatshirt under her jacket. Elaine bent down and bundled up the little shivering creature in her coat. "Why were you supposed to hide?"

"We ain't supposed to be seen. Somebody might take us away and do bad things to us," it said though chattering teeth. It had an adorable little voice and large blueish eyes.

"I'll take you home with me to warm up. How does that sound?" She picked him up and sat him in her cart. "I would never do bad things to a cute little thing like you. My name is Elaine Short."

"Short? But you're tall. I'm Mikey. I'm short. But Raphie's shorter. I think that's why he hits us so much. He cries a lot too. And Leo's real mean. He's always locking him closets and dropping bugs in his soup and Don can read five books and he reads to me every night and I'm too stupid to read. My That's what Leo says. He said that if I eat macaroni and cheese I'll turn into a girl."

She pushed the cart back down the street towards the subway and then reconsidered. "Do you mind if we go to Target first? Do you have a coat?"

He wiggled his little legs happily in the crate. "We don't haves any coats. We stay inside and don't needs them. What's a target? Like the thing you hit?"

He didn't have a coat? What kind of parent did he have? "Don't you play outside in the snow?"

Little Mikey was shivering in her coat and cuddling it around him. "I never seen snow before. I like it. Raphie would be scared. He's scared of everything. He's scared of loud noises and the dark and bugs and Leo and cats and fire and baths..."

"I'll take you to the store with me and buy you a coat and some other nice things. How many brothers do you have?"

"Three. There's Leo and Raphie and Donny."

She pushed the cart along the street. "If you aren't supposed to be seen, you'll have to bundle up like E.T."

"What's that?"

She bent down and covered him up in the basket like a mummy. "That warmer? Now nobody can see you. How old are your brothers?"

"Age?" He sounded like he didn't understand the concept. "I don't know how many we are. But Sensei says we're the same age."

So they were quadruplets? There were three more of these little green children. "Are your brothers as cute as you?"

"Nope."

She laughed. "I had a little son a long time ago. He was a lot like you."

"He was cute too?"

"Yes." She had to ask. "What are you exactly? You don't look like a human. You look like a leprechaun."

"We're turtles. We're not supposed to let humans see us because they'll take us away from Sensei. And we ain't supposed to go outside or go away from him because we'll get lost and Donny gets lost a lot. He takes stuff apart too. He set our bed on fire once."

They were within sight of the Target store. Little Mikey stuck his eyes out of the blanket and gasped a little cry of fear and hid face from the lights. "Don't worry," she said. "Nobody will see you and nobody will take you away. I'll buy you a coat to wear and then you'll be warm. And I'll buy some dinner for us. I have a kitty and I'll need to buy her dinner too."

"A kitty!" He nearly jumped up in the basket in his excitement. "I like kitties a lot! I tried to pet one once and it bit Raphie!"

That Raphie seemed to have bad luck, she thought as she wheeled through the door and her walker rattled over the entrance. She saw him sit forward, looking out of his cocoon with curiosity.

"What do you want? Do you want toys?" She looked down and saw the bundled up jacket quivering.

His voice was little and nervous. "Leo says toys are for babies and that he's a big boy. He's going to be a great ninja when he grows up. Either that or a clown in a circus so he can ride the elphants every day."

She wheeled him down the grocery aisles. "See anything good?"

"That's pretty!" He pointed a green finger at a pink box of cereal with a multi-colored unicorn on the front.

"We can have this for breakfast then." She put the box in the cart and tucked the box into his coat so he could look at it. She heard his squeaky voice saying, "My name is Donatello, the magic unicorn trainer and I'm gonna make these unicorns have jets so they can fly to the moon..." He imitated a horse neighing. The sound was high-pitched and adorable.

A lady nearby looked down and smiled. "Is that your grandson?"

She smiled back and nodded.

"Let's have pizza! I had that one time."

She pushed her walker off to the freezer aisle. "Tuck in tight, there. It's cold down here."

"Let's get lots of pizza and save some for Sensei. He liked pizza too."

She got one small pizza and said, "Well, they won't be able to join us tonight. Maybe tomorrow night."

"Okay." He neighed at the cereal box again.

They left Target with a sack full of four snowsuits, a pizza, and cookies and candy. Before they left, she took him into the bathroom to let him use the toilet and to bundle him up in the new snowsuit. As soon as the door shut and locked behind them, he jumped out of the basket and ran up to the toilet. He pushed up the lid and looked inside, with a confused expression. "What's that?"

"That's a toilet."

"Why's it white? Ours is a bucket. It don't have water in."

"Do you need to sit down?" She was really becoming concerned at his living conditions at home.

"No, I gotta go potty."

She decided to turn around let him use the toilet in privacy. He wasn't her little boy. Elaine couldn't help looking at him though. He was so different, but adorable. Cuter than a human boy his own age. At least to her. His eyes were so large and expressive and he smiled and giggled at everything.

He finished and she reached over to flush the toilet. Elaine felt his arms wrap around her leg and he said, "That was loud! I don't like the new toilet!"

So she packed him into one of the snowsuits. It was an awkward fit, due to the hard shell on his back. She sat him on the baby changing table and thought he would protest and say he wasn't a baby, but he didn't seem to know what the table was used for and was content to lie there and play with the straps and talk to himself in his elfin voice while she tugged and pulled the snowsuit up his body. Then she tied the hood tightly around his face so that as little green was showing as possible.

She put him down on the ground and he reached up to hold her hand. "You're so much like Dennis," she said. "I can't hold your hand when we walk because I have I have to push this. But you can hold on to the basket, if you want."

He happily took a hold of the rail of the walker and started singing to himself. Then he said, "I don't think Raphie will wear his. He's naughty. Don might cut his up. He's naughty too. They're all naughty but me. I'm a good boy."

The subway was crowded with people on their way back home from work. Little Mikey looked down the stairs into the subway and said, "We going home now?"

"Yup. My house is far away and we need to ride the subway."

He hesitated. "My Sensei will paddle me for getting seen and being lost. I need to go home now."

She grabbed his mittened hand. "But I don't know where you live and you don't either. I can't let you wander around at night by yourself. I'll bring you back tomorrow and we can look for your... what's your parents names? That might help."

"I don't have a mommy, but Sensei is our daddy. He takes care of us. He's real nice. He lets me sleep in his bed when I have bad dreams or when Raphie knocks me off the bed." She picked him up carried him in one arm and pulled the cart with the other. He put his arms around her neck. Just like little Dennis.

They sat on the subway and she held him on her lap and watched him staring at the other commuters, his already large eyes even wider. It was a little bit of a shame that the little cutey had a family. It would be so nice to keep him.


	2. Chapter 2

_Poor Splinter must be pulling out his whiskers. Little detour from my now non-existent outline for some random subway cuteness. Mikey is almost unbearably cute. I don't know how his brothers didn't murder him out of jealousy._

The baby had fallen asleep on her lap during the long subway ride. His little head fell forward and Elaine had to hold a hand out to catch him from tumbling off her lap. She turned him around and rearranged him, leaning him against her chest so she could hold him more easily with one arm.

An older man on her left side smiled down at him and said, "Your little grandbaby's tired."

Elaine shifted him slightly so that the small bit of green face was hidden. "Yeah, he's a little sleepyhead. Teaches me to take him out so late. But it has to be done sometimes. It's funny how babies never change. My grandkids are pretty much the same as my kids were at their age. This one is so much like my Dennis. And my Michelle's girl is a lot like her, only more of a snot."

The man shifted on his cane as the subway slowed. "I hear ya. My kids all bring their own kids over and they act like a bunch of damn brats. Running around breaking Donna's ceramic owls. Especially Hunter. What the hell kind of a name is Hunter?"

Little Mikey stirred, but didn't open his eyes. He said, "That's a bad word," and fell asleep instantly.

"Well, he's a gentleman, huh?" the old man said. He reached out and patted Mikey on the back before Elaine could stop him.

He felt the shell. What should she say? He's a little talking animal with a shell? People were cruel to little children with deformities. Dennis' short life had taught her that. She shifted the sleeping toddler away from him and said, "He has curvature of the spine. Wears a brace."

He pulled his hand back and said, "Poor little tyke. My cousin had something like that. Think it was polio. Remember back then when everybody had polio and everybody was scared of getting it?"

She certainly did remember. The leg braces in Dennis' closet made sure that she didn't forget.

The subway train slowed again and Mikey woke up, looking around drowsily. She worried that he wouldn't recognize his surroundings and cry. But instead he pointed at a large seeing-eye dog, wearing a blue jacket. The golden retriever stood by its master, still and proud. He pointed at the dog and said, "What's that?"

"That's a doggy. You haven't seen one before?"

He shook his head no.

The old man raised his eyebrows. "He's about three, right? He hasn't seen a dog before?"

"Well, he's only seen little dogs. Not great big ones."

Mikey jumped out of her lap and teetered stiffly towards the dog. It watched him with professional curiosity.

The old man laughed and said, "Looks like he's getting away from you."

He looked like a fluffy blue penguin with his wobbly walk and arms stuck out at his sides at funny angles. He pulled on the owner's pant leg and said, "Excuse me, lady. Could I pet your doggy?"

"Sure." The blind woman looked down at him and Elaine thought it was a shame that she couldn't see his cuteness as well as hear it in his squeaky voice. He stood on his tiptoes to see in its eyes and said, "Good doggy."

Elaine finally made her way through the crowd. It was much easier for a tiny three year old to force its way through the crowd than a squat seventy year old. She held out her hand and said, "That's enough of that, little Mikey. Come with me."

He pouted out his lip over the bottom of his hood, his arms held out a few inches from his sides. He leaned backwards to aim his cute expression in her direction. So he was a little manipulator, was he?

A few teenage boys were sitting nearby and one of them leered down at him and said, "You should be careful. That dog's so big it could eat you."

Mikey rotated slowly to face the mouthy teen and said, "Wow, you have real ugly hair."

His friends laughed at him and then high fived each other behind his back.

Elaine said, "Now pet the doggy, Mikey."

He reached out and patted the dog on the neck in prim and conservative strokes. Then he threw his arms around its neck. The dog was as still as a guard at Buckingham Palace. "You's a good doggy."

The teenage boys mocked him with affected "Aww"s. The boy with the ugly hair said, "What's wrong with his back? It's all thick and round. What, is he retarded?"

Elaine slapped the kid across the face. The blind woman exclaimed, "What was that?"

"How dare you talk about a sweet little child that way! Can he help it?" She scooped Mikey into her arms and sat at the other end of the train with the old man, ignoring the vulgar outbursts from the teen and his friends.

Mikey leaned back to look in her face and said, "You hit that ugly kid. That was bad. But he was mean. Am I retarded? What's that?"

"I kept an eye on your groceries. Got to watch your stuff better on the subway," the old man said. "And your temper. Might get in trouble."

She'd been riding the New York subway system her whole life and didn't need any advice from him. But it was still good of him to watch her things, rather than taking them. "Thank you."

"What's retarded?" Mikey asked, tapping her on the arm to get her attention.

The old man said, "Retarded is when somebody has something wrong with them. Like they're slow or they ain't made like normal."

"I'm retarded then. I ain't like normal." He said it with a happy little smile and then said, "I want to kiss you." And he leaned forward and gave her a few baby kisses and giggled.

* * *

Elaine pushed the cart slowly down the slick sidewalk. All she needed was a broken hip. Her friend Gladys had a hip replacement. They cut out the whole joint and she'd rather be an invalid the rest of her life than let a doctor saw her leg in half.

Baby Mikey was sitting up in the cart, holding on to the front of the basket and singing to himself. The song wasn't English and it didn't sound like French. She learned French in high school back in the Stone Age.

"What's that you're singing?" she asked.

"That's the song about the sick tiger," he said. "He dies at the end. It's real sad. It makes Leo cry. He don't like stuff about dying. He says he's scared of dying. I don't know what dying is. He says our pet rat died and went away. But he was right there in the morning. He was just asleep. Is that your house?" His mittened hand pointed towards her little row house. "Why's the houses stuck together?"

"Takes up less space, I suppose," she said as she lugged the cart up the front steps and tried to maneuver the baby and the cart and groceries through the door.

He stood in the entry, looking up at the ceiling and pointing, gasping dramatically. "That's a lamp in the roof! Do bad people die like getting spanked?"

She couldn't answer that question, mostly because didn't understand it. Well, she could say, "Yes, that's a lamp in the roof. It makes it lighter high up towards the top of the stairs. And everybody dies. We'll both die someday."

"Is it like going away on a trip?" He held her hand and took the stairs in great strides due to his short legs.

"Not exactly. Let's not talk about it. It makes me sad."

"Don't be sad, nice lady. Sensei says dying ain't nothing to be scared of and Leo cries. Then Raphie cries 'cause he always cries. He says he don't know what dying is either, but if Leo's scared it makes him scared. Donnie said it means your body goes bad like a old tomato. Bad tomatoes are stinky."

She opened the front door and ushered the little guy into the room. He looked around as she hauled the cart over the threshold and said, "You got lots of stuffs."

Mikey held his arms up to her and said, "I gotta go potty again. Can we have the pizzas? Kitty!" His bladder was forgotten as he spotted a grey tabby cat lounging on a chair. He waddled over and patted the kitty on the head a few times. "Good kitty," he said. "I'm Mikey." Then he picked her up around the middle. Sadie was a lazy cat and wouldn't have cared if he had dangled her upside down by her tail. She hung limp in his arms, but he was so short that her back legs dragged on the ground as he wandered down the hallway. "We's going to the bathroom."

Elaine hurried after him and peeled off the snowsuit. He said, "I'm hot. Can we have ice cream? Good kitty. Can he have a bath in the toilet?" She'd forgotten how much work small children were, especially when they were talkative little imps like this child.

* * *

"Kiss me goodnight, Mikey and then its bedtime," Elaine said. She bundled him up next to her in her bed. Dennis' room was still full of toys and clothes and his furniture, but the hospital bed had been returned many decades ago. Mikey hopped up and down on the bed, clutching a stuffed rabbit, giggling. Sadie watched him, annoyed that he had disturbed her precious slumber.

He stopped jumping and crawled up the bed to her, kissing her goodnight and then snuggled under the blanket, holding the bunny. "Night night." That was much easier than she remembered.

* * *

Of course, it was too good to be true. Elaine awoke to snuffing and high-pitched crying. "What's wrong, little one?" she asked with her eyes still closed.

"I want my Donny!" Mikey wailed. "I wants to go home! I'm scared. I want my Sensei!"

She held him and dried his wet face. She said, "We'll look tomorrow, but I'm not sure we'll find him."

"I want to go home," he said, in the most pathetic little voice she'd ever heard. "I… I… wants Mr. Bear. Donny always reads me a story before bedtime and Raphie pretends to read me a story and Leo kisses me goodnight and I kiss Raphie and he cries and Donny kisses Leo and…" He fell asleep midsentence, his warm body hiccupping under her arm.

Within a few hours she discovered that precious little Mikey, kitty lover and kisser, was also a prolific bed wetter. She was covered in urine and couldn't remember a child that size producing so much at one time. She moved him onto a living room chair and covered him in a few blankets. She changed the sheets on the bed, hobbling back and forth across the apartment.

Raising children was hard.

She was too old. That was the problem. This was easy stuff when she was twenty-five. Now waking up soaked in urine and listening to Mikey crying for his daddy and brothers every few hours was exhausting.

Maybe Michelle could help. She had a little girl his age. Maybe Michelle could look after him while she looked for his family.

His family, who lived underground, had no running water and listened to stories about death at three years old. She had half a mind to tell Michelle to keep him and raise him as her own baby. She gathered Mikey in her arms and carried him back to the bedroom, his arms hanging down at a funny angle. He stirred, looked up at her and muttered, "Go home now?"

She said, "Not yet, baby."

He sniffed and closed his eyes again, holding on to the bunny like it would run away.


	3. Chapter 3

_I feel bad for baby Raph the more I mention him. In Mikey's eyes, he spent every minute crying. If I found little Mikey wandering around at three or four years old, I'd keep him too. I might keep Leo or Don. I'd probably give Raph away._

"So does any of this look familiar?" Elaine asked for the hundredth time as she held Mikey's bemittened hand. He trotted along happily singing "I'm a Little Teapot" over and over.

"Nope. Can we have ice cream! I love ice cream, but we only had it once and it was kind of runny. We was going up to the top because we runned out of food and had nothing for a whole day and Raphie was crying 'cause he was hungry."

Her heart hurt for the little cutie. She watched as he skipped lightly over the cracks in the pavement, full of contentment.

Did this alley look familiar? Mikey stopped skipping and pointed down the alley excitedly. "I know this place! We get food from that big box!"

They ate out of dumpsters? She would find this Sensei and give him a piece of her mind. No little children, especially ones as cute as her Mikey should eat out of dumpsters. His hand slipped out of hers and he waddled down the alley, the snowsuit stiffening his knees. He moved with amazing speed despite his encumbrance.

"Sensei!" Mikey called sweetly down the alley. "I'm back now! Come out and take me home."

Elaine followed him, careful not to step on any icy spots. Alleys weren't salted like sidewalks. "I don't know if he's right out here in the open, waiting, pumpkin. He might be at home. Is your house near here?"

"No. This ain't where we live…" His eyes widened and he looked around. "Wassat?"

Elaine tilted her head. "I don't hear…" But she did hear something. A slight scraping inside the dumpster. "Oh, it's probably a cat or something. Let's go, little Mikey. We should get some warm food in your belly. Let's go to a restaurant and I'll get you some soup."

Mikey jumped up and down, grunting when he couldn't reach the dumpster lid. "We gotta look."

"Okay, but then we're going to go eat. Now stand back in case the kitty gets scared and runs away real fast."

He obediently took a few steps away. Elaine swallowed, hoping that she didn't get scratched. A woman at her church had died of cat scratch fever in the 1970's and she'd always had a little bit of fear because of it.

Elaine opened the lid of the dumpster. Nothing. Just a bunch of trash. Although one of the bags moved suspiciously, as if motivated by more than just the wind. And then she saw a tiny green foot sticking out of the bag, trembling. Another one. One of Mikey's brothers.

"Hello there," Elaine said. "It's okay. I'm a friend. Your brother Mikey is with me."

"Brother! My brother! Lemme see! Lemme see!" Mikey grabbed her leg and hopped up and down.

The foot disappeared into the garbage bag, which convulsed. She wouldn't leave the little thing here in the dumpster. How awful. A little child sleeping in a dumpster? How did their father let that happen? She moved some bags aside until she saw a pair of terrified yellow eyes staring back at her. This one was a darker green than her Mikey. Sort of a John Deere green. Not nearly as cute and trembling all over. He was also smaller. Shorter, but with thicker limbs. He blinked and his bottom lip wiggled as tears welled up. "D-d-don't hurt me, mean lady!" he said, in a slightly heavier tone that Mikey. "I-I-I's goes home and tells on you."

"Raphie! Raphie!" Mikey hopped up and down, giggling with glee. "That's Raphie! Lemme see!"

"Calm down, Mikey. I'll get him out. I'll take him to get some soup with us. Would you like that, little Raphie?"

"Y-y-you go aways!" He turned his head and lay trembling in a ball in the garbage. It was one of the most pathetic things she'd ever seen. His baby arms and legs all curled up and quivering with the cold and fear.

She reached in and put her hands under his arms. He didn't look too heavy. He squealed with fright and all his limbs wind milled in the air, fighting to escape. "No! No! No! Y-y-ou's one of the b-b-bad peoples. They t-t-takes us aways and d-d-does bad things to us!"

"No she don't!" Mikey said happily as Elaine set the squirming toddler on the ground at her feet.

As soon as her hands left his trembling body, he threw himself at Mikey, wrapping his arms around his neck, weeping loudly. Mikey patted his brother's shell, a smile on his face, as if this were an everyday occurrence. "Don't be scared, Raphie! We're gonna go get soup!"

"I's scawed!" Raphie yelled into Mikey's shoulder.

"You're freezing too. Did you spend all night in that thing?" She couldn't conceal the disgust in her voice.

Raphie's body heaved with sobbing and it was clear that he was not going to answer any of her questions. She reached down to pick him up and he turned around suddenly, planting his teeth into her hand.

"Ouch! Bad boy!" she yelled, shaking her finger.

"You's n-n-no hurts my Mikey!" He balled up his little fists and stamped his foot.

Elaine definitely did not have the same tender feelings for little Raphie that she had for little Mikey. But he was scared and cold and lost and she had a duty to take care of this one too. "I'm just going to get you some food and get you warmed up. You look really cold."

"I's not c-c-cold!" he said defiantly through his chattering teeth, his whole body shuddering.

Mikey held Raphie's hand and said helpfully, "Raphie talks real funny. I think it's 'cause he's stupid."

Raphie nodded in solemn agreement and said, "Yeah, I's stupid."

She scratched her head. She could barely handle Mikey and now she had his brother, who seemed to be an even bigger handful. "I'm sure you're not stupid. I knew a little girl who had a stutter like you and she went on to be a school principal."

"Was dat?" Raphie asked. He cuddled himself against Mikey's side, shielding himself from her. "Dat s-s-some kind of m-m-monster? I's scawed of dem."

She took off her jacket again and held it out for Raphie. He knitted his brow, struggling between his fear of the stranger and his desire to be warm. Desire won out and he crept up to her, his eyes wide and lips tightly squeezed together. "Don't be scared," she said. "I haven't hurt Mikey, have I?"

"N-n-no. But we's to stay out of s-s-sight. I's gets paddled at home. I's real bad."

Finally, she gathered up his shaking body in her jacket and set him into the basket of her walker. Mikey stood in front of her, his arms held up in obedience. She set him next to Raphie, who instantly clamped his arms around his brother's middle, hiding his face in his chest. Mikey bundled him up in the jacket and hummed "I'm a Little Teapot" again.

* * *

Elaine carefully pushed the walker back over the ice and on to the sidewalk. She looked down at the two green toddlers cuddling in her walker. Raphie was so cold and scared. How could she send him back? Huddled in a dumpster all night. She burned with anger at the idea. This Sensei didn't deserve these little angels. Well, Mikey was an angel. She didn't know what Raphie was exactly.

She tucked the jacket more closely around Raphie and felt his body wince at her touch. Did he have an anxiety disorder? The walker jammed in the doorway of the restaurant as she pushed it over the threshold. She didn't usually carry so much weight in it.

Dan polished the counter and leaned down to see the new additions to her basket. "Those your grandkids?"

"No," Mikey said, standing up to see in the display case. Raphie squeaked as his security object left his arms. "We going home. That's lots of food."

Raphie grabbed Mikey by the knees and he fell back in the cart. "You's comes back here!"

Elaine tapped Raphie on the shoulder and felt him shy away from her touch. She bundled him back in the jacket to conceal his green skin from Dan. "You stop hitting your brother, Raphie. These are the neighbor kids. I'm watching them today. I think we're going to have one bowl of soup and a cup for each of the little ones. Could we have them to go?"

"Don't want to stay?" Dan asked as he spooned some chicken noodle soup into a foam container.

"I want to s-s-stay," said Raphie's voice from his nest of trembling jacket. It seemed cruel to make the little thing go out into the cold again so soon.

"Alright," she said reluctantly. "Sit back down, Mikey. You two have to sit and be good or we'll leave. Raphie has to stay in the cart in the jacket." She mentally prepared herself to clean chicken noodle soup off her jacket when they got home.

She picked the booth at the far end of the diner. Thankfully, they were the only ones there. Mikey jumped out of the cart before she could help him and nimbly set himself on the seat. His nose came up to the table and he said, "I'm real short." Elaine fetched him a booster seat and sat him in it, watching his legs kick against the plastic.

As soon as Elaine sat down to eat her soup she heard a little whimper from the jacket and Raphie said, "Oopsie. I spilled. I's gets paddled now?"

* * *

"It's time for bed, you two," Elaine said. She'd thrown the jacket into the washing machine as soon as she got home and also Mikey's snowsuit since he'd been afraid to ask to go to the bathroom on the way home and wet himself. Both Raphie and Mikey were bouncing on the bed, giggling.

Toddlers. So hard. Too hard. Maybe Michelle would watch them. Her daughter could handle them for a while. But how would she introduce them to her? What would she say? I found some green children who look like turtles in an alley and I want you to babysit them? These are your two new brothers, Michelle.

Mikey crawled under the covers, but Raphie ignored her and kept jumping. "Raphie, I'm serious. Come to bed now." He stopped jumping and watched her, with a small frown. "I n-n-no want to."

"It's okay, baby. Come here." She patted the bed next to her.

He shook his head vigorously, his yellow eyes wide with terror.

"Then sleep on Mikey's other side. Then he'll be in between us."

Raph came towards her slowly, his hands behind his shell. He crept into bed next to Mikey and cuddled him. Mikey patted him on the head and said, "You okay, Raphie. I take care of you. I gonna kiss you now." And he kissed Raphie, who giggled. Mikey said, "Night night!" and kissed him again. Raphie giggled louder. Mikey recognized his success as an entertainer and kissed him again. "Night night!"

Elaine suppressed the coo that threatened to escape and said, "Now be quiet. I'm going to read you a story and then we're going to sleep. This is a really old story." She pulled out her Bible and the book fell open from use, the binding broken many years ago. Her church gave it to her for her high school graduation. Blue ink underlined many passages and tiny handwritten notes filled the yellow margins. Every few pages held an old church bulletin or prayer prompter.

"No pitchers?" Mikey asked, curling up under her arm and examining the book as if he could read the tiny print.

She wasn't sure what to read to them. "Do you two go to Sunday school?"

"We're too little for school," Mikey said. "We gonna start when I can use the potty good."

Raphie said, "Mikey potties on me lots."

Elaine hoped that Raphie wouldn't remember than as an adult. "Now listen." She put an arm around Mikey and felt Raphie move away to the other side of the bed, where he sat alone, craning his neck to see the pages. "'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me…'"

"Who's the Lord?" Mikey asked. "Is he your dad?"

"He's a n-n-ninja like Master Spwinter," Raphie said as if it were very obvious.

"No, the Lord is God."

Mikey wrinkled up his green face and said, "What's God?"

She was too tired to describe the concept at this hour. How could she take them to church on Sunday? Maybe if they stayed in their snowsuits and they all sat in the back. "Let's talk about it later. I'll tell you who he is on Sunday. 'He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul…'"

At the end of the Psalm, which wasn't very long, she felt Mikey's warm head asleep against her shoulder. Raphie was asleep sitting up, his head lolling back and forth as he tried not to fall down, his eyes opening for a split second and then closing again.

She put her hand on Raphie's arm to guide him onto the bed and his eyes opened. "Master Spwinter?" he asked, pouting. "I's not s-s-sleepy." He looked around drowsily and then pointed at a picture on her bedside table. "Who dat?"

"That's my little son Dennis. He died when he was eight."

Raphie squinted at the picture and said, "He looks funny."

"He was sick. He was so sick that he died."

"He good boy?"

She pulled the picture from the table and let him hold it for a better look. "He was a very good boy. But he had polio. His legs and back were funny because he got sick. That's what polio was. He got so sick that his legs didn't work and he couldn't breathe."

"Good boys shouldn't d-d-d…" He sighed with frustration. "D-d-d…d-d…" He threw the picture down and burrowed into the blankets. "I's gonna get sick too?" she heard his tiny voice ask from his hole.

"No, you won't get sick. People don't get polio now. Go to sleep."

She pulled the blankets down from his face so he could breathe and found that he had tears in his eyes. "I's sick too. I's talks so bad."

"Oh, you do okay."

Mikey snored, his arms and legs in every direction, the bunny clutched above his head with one hand.

She woke up feeling stiff and wondering why. Then she remembered that she was sixty five. Sometimes Elaine woke up surprised that she still wasn't twenty. The bed was warm and empty and she rolled her eyes, wondering if they had gone to the bathroom without her and cringed when she realized the trouble they could have gotten into. Especially Mikey.

Not in Dennis' room playing with his old toys. Maybe they were too old fashioned. A slinky dog and a jack in the box. Some old jacks.

Not in the bathroom. The floor was wet with urine and she was sure that Mikey had had an accident on the way or else missed the toilet entirely.

Not in the living room or the kitchen. But the cupboards had been ransacked by little hands. Small two toed footprints on the counter where one of them stood to get to the cereal. And two snowsuits were gone. They weren't anywhere in the house.

They were alone. Out in the world by themselves, wandering the neighborhood.


End file.
